The Mountaineers is an alpine club in the US state of Washington. Founded in 1906, it is organized as an outdoor recreation, education, and conservation 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and is based in Seattle, Washington. The club hosts a wide range of outdoor activities, primarily alpine mountain climbing and hikes. The club also hosts classes, training courses, and social events.
The club runs a publishing business, Mountaineers Books, which has several imprints. Publications include Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills .
The Mountaineers has 7 branches in Western Washington, 3 mountain lodges, and 2 program centers: one in Magnuson Park in Seattle, and one in Tacoma. All classes and trips are organized.
Originally a Seattle-based part of the Mazamas, a Portland based group founded in 1894, The Mountaineers formed their own branch shortly after the 1906 Mazamas Mount Baker expedition and dubbed themselves "The Mountaineers" with 110 charter members. The club constitution was officially adopted in 1907 by a membership of 151. Among these original members were Henry Landes (University of Washington geology dean and later acting president), Edmond S. Meany (the father of the University of Washington Forestry school), the photographer Asahel Curtis, and Seattle photographer and North Cascades guide Lawrence Denny Lindsley.
The activities initially were local walks with the first trip being a hike through Fort Lawton to the West Point Lighthouse (now part of Discovery Park). The first mountain climbing trip was Mount Si. In 1907, 65 members made a group climb of Mount Olympus and exploration of the Olympic Mountains. The next year a summit of Mount Baker was organized, followed by Mount Rainier in 1909. In 1915, a club outing became the first sizable group to hike around Mount Rainier and established the route that would later become known as the Wonderland Trail.
From 1907 to 1995, new climbs in the Cascades were reported in the Mountaineers Annual. Since 2004, the Northwest Mountaineering Journal (NWMJ), hosted by the Mountaineers, has recorded this information.
In the first 100 years since the club's founding it expanded to over 10,000 active members and expanded its offerings from a single annual alpine climb to a range of activities.. Classes are offered beyond climbing skills including nature photography. navigation and first aid. A thirty-hour wilderness first aid course called Mountaineering Oriented First Aid (MOFA) was produced by the organization. The organization is home to The Mountaineers Players which perform in the organization's Forest Theatre on the Kitsap Peninsula.
In 2008, the Mountaineers moved from Lower Queen Anne to an old naval building in Magnuson Park, now leased from the City of Seattle. [1]
The Mountaineers operates three lodges in the mountains of Washington State. They are primarily used as base-camps.
The Mountaineers Library was founded in 1915. As of 2011 it contained 6,000 books and subscribes to 40 periodicals. It specializes in studies on climbing, environmental studies, biographies of mountaineers, the history of exploratory mountaineering and natural history. [2]
Mountaineers Books, based in Seattle, Washington, is the publishing division of The Mountaineers. It was informally started in 1955 when a volunteer committee was formed to create a mountaineering training text from the materials that the club was using for its classes.
Mountaineers Books has produced more than 1,000 titles since its foundation in 1960. It also publishes conservation advocacy titles under the Braided River imprint.
Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become sports in their own right. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering are also considered variants of mountaineering by some, but are part of a wide group of mountain sports.
Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey, known as Fred Beckey, was an American rock climber, mountaineer and book author, who in seven decades of climbing achieved hundreds of first ascents of some of the tallest peaks and most important routes throughout Alaska, the Canadian Rockies and the Pacific Northwest. Among the Fifty Classic Climbs of North America, seven were established by Beckey, often climbing with some of the best known climbers of each generation.
Mount Adams, known by some Native American tribes as Pahto or Klickitat, is a potentially active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range. Although Adams has not erupted in more than 1,000 years, it is not considered extinct. It is the second-highest mountain in Washington, after Mount Rainier.
Mount Olympus, at 7,980 feet (2,430 m), is the tallest and most prominent mountain in the Olympic Mountains of the U.S. state of Washington. Located on the Olympic Peninsula, it is also a central feature of Olympic National Park. Mount Olympus is the highest summit of the Olympic Mountains; however, peaks such as Mount Constance and The Brothers, on the eastern margin of the range, are better known, being visible from the Seattle metropolitan area.
Norman Clyde was a mountaineer, mountain guide, freelance writer, nature photographer, and self-trained naturalist. He is well known for achieving over 130 first ascents, many in California's Sierra Nevada and Montana's Glacier National Park. He also set a speed climbing record on California's Mount Shasta in 1923. The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley has 1467 articles written by Clyde in its archives.
Alpental, named after the German word for alpine valley, is both a valley in eastern King County, Washington, United States, and part of a ski area in the valley. The valley is about 50 miles (80 km) east of Seattle, Washington and is north of Snoqualmie Pass, in the Washington Cascades. It is a popular outdoor recreation destination in summer and winter. The ski area is one of four areas that make up The Summit at Snoqualmie.
The Bugaboos are a mountain range in the Purcell Mountains of eastern British Columbia, Canada. The granite spires of the group are a popular mountaineering destination. The Bugaboos are protected within Bugaboo Provincial Park.
Harvey Manning was a noted author of hiking guides and climbing textbooks, and a tireless hiking advocate. Manning lived on Cougar Mountain, within the city limits of Bellevue, Washington, calling his home the "200-meter hut". His book Walking the Beach to Bellingham is an autobiography and manifesto fleshing out his journal of a hike along the shore of Puget Sound over a two-year span.
Whitehorse Mountain is a peak near the western edge of the North Cascades in Washington state. It is located just southwest of the Sauk River Valley town of Darrington, near the northern boundary of Boulder River Wilderness in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. While not of particularly high absolute elevation, even for the North Cascades, it is notable for its large, steep local relief. For example, its north face rises 6,000 feet in only 1.8 mi (2.9 km).
Edmond Stephen Meany was a professor of botany and history at the University of Washington (UW). He was an alumnus of the university, having graduated as the valedictorian of his class in 1885 when it was the Territorial University of Washington. Meany also earned a Master of Science from the University of Washington in 1899, and a Master of Letters from the University of Wisconsin in 1901.
The Mazamas is a mountaineering organization based in Portland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1894.
Vesper Peak is a peak along the Mountain Loop Highway region of the North Cascades of Washington state. It is about 18 miles (29 km) south of Darrington and 21 miles (34 km) east of Granite Falls, in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Its gentle south and east slopes contrast with a sheer north face which offers "excellent technical routes".
The Colorado Mountain Club (CMC), formed in 1912, is a nonprofit, 501 (c)(3) outdoor education organization based in Golden, Colorado that gathers and disseminates information regarding Colorado's mountains in the areas of art, science, literature and recreation. The club advocates for the preservation of the alpine regions, and was instrumental in the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park. The CMC has its own press with over 30 published titles, and has continuously published Trail & Timberline magazine since 1918.
Horse Camp is a property on Mount Shasta owned by the nonprofit Sierra Club Foundation. It is a 720-acre (2.9 km2) enclave within the Mount Shasta Wilderness of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California, United States. It is located at approximately 7,950 feet (2,420 m) elevation at the lower end of Avalanche Gulch, the most popular climbing route on the mountain.
The High Trips were large annual wilderness excursions organized and led by the Sierra Club, beginning in 1901. The High Trips lasted until the early 1970s, and were replaced by a larger number of smaller trips to wilderness areas worldwide.
Meany Lodge is a 54-acre (22 ha) ski area located in Martin, Washington near Stampede Pass, Washington, United States. It was built in 1928, making it the oldest ski area in Washington and among the oldest in the U.S.
The List of Mount Rainier National Park references identifies English language historic, scientific, ecological, cultural, tourism, social, and advocacy books, journals and studies on the subject of Mount Rainier National Park topics published since 1899 and documented in Mount Rainier related bibliographies and other related references.
Alma Wagen was an American mountain guide on Mount Rainier. She was the first female guide employed by Mount Rainier National Park.
Claude Ewing Rusk, also known as C. E. Rusk, was an American mountaineer, lawyer, and author from Washington who pioneered routes up Mount Adams, Mount Baker, and Glacier Peak. He also ascended many other peaks in Washington, Oregon, and California.
Mount Meany is a prominent 6,695-foot (2,041-metre) mountain summit located deep within Olympic National Park in Jefferson County of Washington state. With a good eye and clear weather, the top of the mountain can be seen from the visitor center at Hurricane Ridge. The nearest neighbor is Mount Noyes less than one mile to the south, and the nearest higher peak is Circe (6,847 ft) on Mount Olympus, 4.07 mi (6.55 km) to the northwest. There are scrambling routes on the east side, via Noyes-Meany col, and via the ridge from Mount Queets. Due to heavy winter snowfalls, Mount Meany supports several small glaciers on its north and east slopes, despite its modest elevation. Precipitation runoff from the mountain drains into the headwaters of both the Elwha and Queets Rivers.